Part 18

It is the voice of Hippolytus which she can hear, raging at her nurse in immeasurable scorn, for something that has been asked of him. As each brutal epithet falls, Phædra, in a trance of horror and shame repeats it to the listening women. Then she shrinks aside, as Hippolytus bursts out of the castle, the nurse at his heels, frantically entreating him to hold his peace. By no direct word does he acknowledge Phædra’s presence; and she, with every shred of self-respect gone, cowers apart as though she were indeed guilty of the foulness he imputes to her. But in noisy indignation, with every word barbed for the trembling queen, he raves against the nurse, against the whole of womankind, and love and marriage, ending by a threat to reveal the story to Theseus upon his return. His anger is just; but in the hardness of youth and the bitterness of a narrow spirit it is savage, merciless and all too prompt. Blind to everything but his own wounded pride, he cannot see that Phædra has been cruelly betrayed by the meddling zeal of her servant; and he heaps insult upon her until her sensitive soul lies prostrate—a thing that seems even to herself as black as he believes it. All through the tirade she, who is the central figure in this extraordinary scene, takes no part in it: she remains mute, as though literally smitten dumb with shame, until Hippolytus rushes out. Then she sinks to the ground, sobbing:

“_And, this thing, O my God, And thou, sweet Sunlight, is but my desert! I cannot fly before the avenging rod Falls, cannot hide my hurt._“[32]

Some of the women try to comfort her, and raising her eyes as they speak, she catches sight of the figure of the nurse. She springs from the ground, a wave of anger sweeping away her weakness:

“_O vilest of the vile, O murderess heart To them that loved thee, hast thou played thy part? Am I enough trod down?_“[32]

The old woman is deeply contrite for the wrong that she has done; but garrulous and plausible to the last, she pleads her love as an excuse, and claims that had her plan succeeded she would have been praised for what she now is blamed. Phædra’s wrath abates a little after its first uncontrolled outburst: she cannot long be angry with one so old and lowly; and besides, there are other, darker things to be thought about and done. But when the nurse, deceived by her calmness, tries to broach some other scheme, the queen dismisses her peremptorily. She will henceforth guide her own affairs, she says; and we know she means that there remains only one thing for her to do. The old woman goes sorrowfully away, and Phædra is left to face the thought of her intolerable humiliation, of the threatened exposure to her husband, and of the stain upon her children. As reflection brings back the assurance that she is innocent, despite all, it does but increase her anguish at the thought of dishonour, and stir her to frenzy against Hippolytus. She is resolved to die: that she sees to be inevitable now. But how save her fair name, and the honour of her young children, and the fame of her dear old Cretan home? How secure to herself, in spite of false appearances, the innocence that is hers by virtue of every act and thought of her life? Beating backward and forward in the narrow circle of shame and fear, the poor baffled mind can only see one path, crooked and dark, to the thing she craves for. It is the way of a lie—a false charge against Hippolytus. It will mean the death of a good man: that she knows—and rejoices in—so completely are truth and justice shrivelled in the monstrous injustice that she is suffering.

“_... But now, yea, even while I reel And falter, one poor hope, as hope now is, I clutch at in this coil of miseries; To save some honour for my children’s sake: Yea, for myself some fragment, though things break In ruin around me. Nay, I will not shame The old proud Cretan castle whence I came. I will not cower before King Theseus’ eyes, Abased, for want of one life’s sacrifice.... Yet, dying, shall I die another’s bane! He shall not stand so proud where I have lain Bent in the dust! Oh, he shall stoop to share The life I live in, and learn mercy there!_”[32]

She goes in, and the Chorus break into a song of foreboding. A few minutes later there are cries of alarm within the castle, the sound of hurrying feet and voices calling to come and help the queen. Then there are ejaculations of pity: a sudden, ominous silence, and again another voice—“Let it lie straight.” Phædra is dead by her own hand.

* * * * *

We must pass quickly over the fate of Hippolytus, though that is really the crisis of the tragedy. Hardly had the poor body of Phædra been composed upon a bier than Theseus himself was announced, returning garlanded and joyful from a visit to the oracle of some god. Met by the news of his wife’s death, he tore off all the signs of joy that he was wearing and threw himself beside her in bitter lamentation. A little tablet hanging from her wrist caught his eye, and believing it to be some dying wish, he gently disengaged it. It was the false charge against Hippolytus; and as the king read, his brow darkened with terrible anger. The pitiful figure before him seemed to claim swift and terrible vengeance; and Theseus uttered an awful curse against his son. Calling upon the god Poseidon to ratify an ancient promise, he demanded instant death for Hippolytus. The petition was uttered rashly, in anger and grief; and Theseus himself hardly dreamed that it would be fulfilled; but the answer came with dreadful promptitude. There was one stormy scene between father and son; and Hippolytus, pleading in vain for mercy, went out to banishment. But Poseidon in his far sea-caves had heard Theseus’ invocation; and as the young prince urged his chariot along the shore, a mighty wave, crested by a fierce sea-monster, rolled destruction on him. Hurled from his chariot, and dragged at the heels of the maddened horses, Hippolytus was barely saved alive by his attendants. They carried him back to the castle, and brought him into the presence of the king, wounded and dying. But before life closed for him he was gloriously vindicated, and the tragedy ends, as it began, with the appearance of a goddess. It is not Aphrodite now, however. She has done her worst with the two young lives she has chosen to despoil; and now Artemis will justify their innocence and leave their memory clean and sweet.

ARTEMIS. _For this I came, to show how high And clean was thy son’s heart, that he may die Honoured of men; aye, and to tell no less The frenzy, or in some sort the nobleness Of thy dead wife._[32]

Footnote 32:

From Professor Gilbert Murray’s translation of the _Hippolytus_ (George Allen & Co. Ltd.).

_Euripides: Iphigenia_

We turn back to the Trojan legend now, and to two Euripidean plays which in some sense round off the Orestean story. We had to leave that story at a ragged edge—the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes in revenge for the death of Agamemnon. We could not go on to the third drama of the Æschylean trilogy, to follow the unhappy youth as he fled in remorse to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and thence to Athens, seeking to appease his mother’s Furies. But if we had done so we should have found the whole theme brought to a calm and beautiful conclusion: Orestes cleansed by suffering and set free from guilt by Athena; and the avenging Furies changed into Spirits of Mercy.

Euripides, however, who took so many subjects for his drama from the Trojan cycle and always gave them new significance, in this case chose variants of the legend and wove them into a story which was entirely fresh. So that the _Iphigenia in Tauris_, with which we are chiefly concerned now, shows Orestes still fleeing before the Erinnyes; and carries the tale to another and much more exciting conclusion. Indeed, the peculiar charm of this tragedy is that it is not really tragedy at all, but a thrilling adventure-play. It reminds us of the _Odyssey_, with its flavour of the sea, the wistful note that haunts it and its spice of physical peril; only, this is the work of a poet who adds high dramatic values to the delight of the story, with a lyric note of enchanting beauty, and penetrating thought.

Characteristically, when Euripides took up this part of the Orestean legend, it was not so much the man Orestes in whom he was interested, as the woman Iphigenia; with the result that we have two dramas called by her name and in which she is the protagonist. Both were produced late in the poet’s life, the _Iphigenia in Aulis_ being probably his last work. It contains the earlier part of the heroine’s story—the sacrifice of the virgin-martyr at Aulis; and the great new feature of it, her rescue by Artemis just as the knife was falling to her throat, was perhaps the poet’s own invention. There is no hint of it in Æschylus. To Clytemnestra, the murder of her first-born child Iphigenia was the crime which turned her life to bitterness and armed her against Agamemnon. He had beguiled her to send the child—for she was but a mere girl—to Aulis, for marriage with the splendid young hero Achilles. And then, at the bidding of a soothsayer, he had ruthlessly slain his daughter on the altar of Artemis; and sailed away to Troy.

Those are the facts at the heart of the mystery which is Clytemnestra; but when we come to the _Iphigenia in Aulis_ we find some different data and a far different interpretation. Agamemnon there is almost pitiably human, driven by complex motives first to consent to Iphigenia’s death, then to recant in horror, and finally to yield to forces which he could not control. Iphigenia, too, is made at once nobler and more tragic in the idea of a willing sacrifice—giving herself up, after the first shock of terror, to die freely for her country’s good. And in her rescue by the goddess there is added an element of marvel and mystery, which is at the same time a protest against a form of religion so inhuman.

The _Iphigenia in Tauris_ opens at a period many years later.

Troy had fallen. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra were both dead in the manner we know of; and Orestes was a fugitive, seeking through many lands to expiate the crime of mother-murder. There had been laid upon him at last, as the only means to peace, the command of Apollo to make his way to the savage land of the Tauri. He was to seize and bring from the temple of Artemis there a certain statue of the goddess which had fallen from heaven long before, and which the people of the land were dishonouring by human sacrifice. Every stranger cast upon their shores was slain at the shrine of the goddess; and Orestes ran the risk of almost certain death in making the venture. But he had a solemn promise from Apollo; and the reward would be sweet indeed. He would be cleansed of the crime, and set free from these haunting shapes of remorse which sometimes drove him to madness. Moreover, he would rid the name of Hellas from the stain which lay on its religion through the barbarous practices of the Tauri. So he and his devoted comrade Pylades sailed for those inhospitable waters.

_Through the Clashing Rocks they burst: They passed by the Cape unsleeping Of Phineus’ sons accurst; They ran by the starlit bay Upon magic surges sweeping, Where folk on the waves astray Have seen, through the gleaming grey, Ring behind ring, men say, The dance of the old Sea’s daughters._[33]

But Destiny was guiding them to something stranger than they had either hoped or dreaded. For this wild land, fiercely guarded from approach by the Rocky Gateway of the Symplêgades, was the country to which Artemis had carried Iphigenia from the altar in Aulis. And in the temple where they must seek the sacred statue, the daughter of Agamemnon was even now a priestess.

The years had passed wearily since Iphigenia first found herself a captive in Tauris. Completely shut off from the world by the sea which foamed round that desolate coast, no word ever came to her from her home in Argos; and she could make no sign to the friends who believed her dead long since. She hated this savage people, and Thoas their king, and the hideous sacrifices at which she had to perform the cleansing rite. Sometimes she would grow sick at their brutality, and wild with loneliness and longing to escape. Then sceptical thoughts would come about the deity who could accept such worship; and it would seem to her better to have died at Aulis than to have been saved for such slow misery. At other times she would brood over her short sweet girlhood and its bitter ending, gone irrevocably from the moment of her father’s fraud; and bitterness would overwhelm her against Agamemnon, and the Seer who counselled him, and the chieftains who persuaded him; but above all against Helen, for whose sake the war was made.

So youth stole away, taking with it, as Iphigenia sadly thought, all the high things that inspire a fair young soul—the shining ideal, the simple and ardent faith, the generous emotion that leaps to sympathy and service. And at the moment of the opening of the play, when the ship that bears Orestes is being run ashore at Tauris, Iphigenia stands before her temple feeling hard and hopeless, dispossessed of all that is dear in life, and with every illusion long since fled.

It is early morning, and Iphigenia has just emerged from the temple. There are a few lines of formal exposition: an involuntary cry of disgust at the blood-stained altar that is insulting the eye of day; and then a flow of troubled speech.

“_Ah me! But what dark dreams, thou clear and morning sky I have to tell thee, can that bring them ease!_“[33]

In the night that has just passed, she had dreamed of her home in Argos. She seemed to lie asleep there, with her maids around her, when suddenly an earthquake shook the palace; and running out of doors, she saw the great building reel and fall. Only one pillar remained; and as she watched it, she saw that brown hair waved about its head, and she heard it speak with a human voice. Then, in the strange confusion of dreams, she found herself fulfilling the office that she bears here in Tauris; and she washed the pillar clean for death, as it was her duty to wash the victims for the sacrifice.

With pathetic readiness, Iphigenia has accepted the dream as an evil omen. The pillar of her father’s house must mean his son Orestes, whom she left a child in Argos all those years ago. Those whom she cleanses are doomed to die. What can the dream mean, therefore, save that her brother is dead? The conviction is so strong upon her that she at once decides to prepare the funeral rite.

“_Therefore to my dead brother will I pour Such sacrifice, I on this bitter shore And he beyond great seas, as still I may._“[33]

But hardly has she gone upon her errand when there is a sound of muffled voices approaching, and two youths enter, treading cautiously, and peering for danger on every side. They are Orestes and his friend Pylades, who have found their way up from the shore, and are searching for some means to carry out the god’s command. As they come before the temple, and note the grim signs of slain men on the altar and hanging from the roof, they realize that this is the very centre of their quest; and that they have now to face the most deadly peril of all.

At this crucial moment, however, when all their hopes depend on a calm nerve and rapid thought and resolute action, an approaching fit of madness begins to shake Orestes. With strength sapped and courage broken, he falls upon a seat while Pylades goes to reconnoitre. In his weakened state he is overcome by the terror of the place and their enormous danger; and when his friend returns, he implores him to fly back to the galley. But Pylades has hopeful tidings. He has found a spot in this almost impregnable temple where an entry might be forced by courage and daring; and heartening Orestes with the news, he leads him away, to hide till nightfall in a cavern by the seashore.

As they go out of sight, the Chorus enters, singing a hymn to Artemis, the mountain-born child of Leto. They are Greek women, captured in war by Thoas and given by him to the priestess for her handmaidens. They come wonderingly, in answer to Iphigenia’s urgent summons; and are amazed when she appears with every sign of grief, followed by attendants who carry libations for the dead. In answer to a question from their leader, the priestess tells them of her ominous dream and of the funeral rite that she is about to perform for her brother.

“_Alas, O maidens mine! I am filled full of tears; My heart filled with the beat Of tears, as of dancing feet._“[33]

From each attendant she takes in turn a golden goblet containing a libation of wine and milk and honey; and as she pours them into the altar for the dead, she and her women alternately chant a threnody for Orestes. They sing of the old dark story of Agamemnon’s house, from its beginning in the sin of Pelops down to what was for Iphigenia its last and worst enormity, the sacrifice at Aulis. And as their voices rise and fall in the long ceremonial, while Iphigenia is still upon her knees before the altar, there is a violent interruption. A herdsman bursts eagerly upon them, with news that shatters the mournful beauty of their rite.

“_A ship hath passed the blue Symplêgades, And here upon our coast two men are thrown, Young, bold, good slaughter for the altar-stone Of Artemis!_“[33]

The priestess rises, impatient at this sudden recall to her hated duty, and the jarring note that has broken their obsequies. The man and his ugly zeal are a complete offence to her, and she answers him curtly. Who and what are these men he speaks of? At his reply, however, annoyance gives place to astonishment, curiosity, and a strange mingling of joy and pain. For he tells that the men are Greeks; and never yet, in all the dreary time of her captivity, has one of her countrymen landed upon these shores.

Once or twice, in her darkest hours, she had longed and prayed for such a day as this—for fate to send some Hellenic victim to her altar. She had thought she would be glad: that it would be a keen and satisfying pleasure to take a Greek life for all that the Greeks had made her suffer. But now that she stands face to face with her desire, there is a tumult of emotion within her in which bitterness hardly shares.

She questions the herdsman closely of the name and appearance of the strangers. One is called Pylades, he says; but the other’s name he did not catch. And at Iphigenia’s command, he goes over the whole story of their capture. He and his companions were washing their cattle in the sea, when one of them had spied two strangers sitting on the beach in a little bay. They were young, handsome and apparently noble; and there was something in their fine physique and sudden unaccountable appearance in that lonely spot which made one of his fellows cry out that they were gods. But another jeered and said most likely they were shipwrecked sailors who knew the custom of the country and were trying to escape it; and just at that moment a strange thing happened. One of the youths was suddenly seized with a fit of madness. They saw him spring from his seat and beat his head up and down, while he shrieked wildly to his comrade:

“_Pylades, Dost see her there?—And there.—Oh, no one sees!— A she-dragon of Hell, and all her head Agape with fangèd asps, to bite me dead!_“[33]

The distraught fancy of Orestes saw the cattle and their watch-dogs as the pursuing Furies of his mother; and quick as a flash, before his friend could intervene, he had drawn his sword and was slashing right and left amongst the helpless beasts. The herdsmen blew their horns; and soon a crowd had gathered and were pelting the strangers with stones. While the fit of madness lasted Pylades guarded Orestes from attack; but it passed quickly, and the two youths fought together gallantly for life. Not one of the missiles struck home, the goddess, it seemed, taking care to save her prey. But at last they were surrounded, and the swords beaten out of their hands.

“_Then to the king We bore them both, and he, not tarrying, Sends them to thee, to touch with holy spray— And then the blood-bowl._“[33]

All through the tale Iphigenia had listened in pity for the brave youths so cruelly overborne; and now she is suddenly brought back to the thought of the sacrifice and of her part in it. There is a shudder of horror too, when the herdsman reminds her of her prayer in past times for just such a capture as this. She restrains herself with an effort, and coldly bids the man fetch the prisoners; but no sooner has he gone than the tumult of emotion within rushes into speech. Memories of the old times: of the bridal rites that were only a snare; and of the poor timid child that she once had been, imploring her father to be merciful. Thoughts, too, of shipwrecked men and of all the dreadful sacrifices which she cannot and will not believe that the goddess delights in. And above all, the certainty she feels that Orestes is dead; and which she says has turned her heart to stone and made her pitiless.

“_’Tis true: I know by mine own evil will: One long in pain, if things more suffering still Fall to his hand, will hate them for his own Torment,_“[33]

So she thinks she will not falter: that though she may have shrunk from the task in former times, this last pain has made her cruel. Yet, when the strangers are brought in, all the hardness melts in a moment.

“_Ah me! What mother then was yours, O strangers, say, And father? And your sister, if you have A sister: both at once, so young and brave, To leave her brotherless._“[33]

Orestes answers, a little irritated at the sight of her tears. Whoever this stranger woman is, it is hardly kind of her, he thinks, to unman them thus by pity; and he bids her cease. They know the form of worship of the country, and are prepared to die.

Iphigenia checks her tears, but she cannot control her desire for news of home and friends. So, rather heartlessly as the prisoners think, she presses eager questions on them—for their name and parentage and city. To Orestes it seems that she is prompted by the shallowest curiosity, and he flings curt phrases at her, refusing the information. But the clamour at her heart will not be silenced by the rebuke: her own pride and the dignity of her office, and every other consideration but this craving for word from Hellas, go down before it. She pleads that she at least may know what land of Greece they hail from; and grudgingly, in the fewest words possible, Orestes answers that Argos is his land, and his home is at Mycenæ. His words evoke an exclamation of joy from Iphigenia; and as his reluctance gradually breaks up under the spell of her sincerity, he is drawn on to answer her on all those matters which, unknown to either, are of such weighty interest to both.